So Long, and Thanks for All the Ponies

by Sir Ginger

Part 12- Looking for Solutions

“Holy BELGIUM man! You cats have to listen to this song all day?”
“Yes.”
“Even weekends?”
“Yes.”
“Friday nights?”
“YES.”
“Belgium.” Zaphod didn’t even have a ready pose or expression for the emotions he felt inside him at that moment. Pose three hundred and forty-two, which he had used for photographs when caring for orphans during his presidential campaign, did not convey nearly the sheer pity he felt at that exact second. It was not a familiar emotion to him, and he had decided he already did not like it much. He did his best to oust it from his mind. He decided he couldn’t have correctly understood the situation in a subconscious attempt to keep his cool.
“Surely not all night though?”
“ALL. NIGHT.”
“And you can’t put any other music on?”
“NO.”
“Not even some Disaster Area?”
“NO!”
“All night? Every day? The same song?”
“YES! FOR POLKA’S SAKE YES!”
“Belgium.” Pity settled itself in for a long stay in Zaphod’s mind, and the other emotions craned over the benches of the mental senate to get a good look at the newcomer. Willful Disbelief had sat back down in a huff, and there seemed no more challenges forthcoming for the moment. Forgetfulness would no doubt bring Zaphod back to his own personal reality in a while, but for the moment Pity was holding its own and Zaphod felt its presence very strongly indeed.

Music was very important to him, it being a big part of making an impression, and the idea of the same song playing forever, particularly one like this with so little kudos attached to it, was appalling.
“I have a ship...I’m sure there’s something I can do! I am Zaphod Beeblebrox baby!” Ego would not have remained the main emotion in Zaphod’s mind had it not been very good at taking control of a mental situation. It introduced itself to Pity to produce a nice little alliance called a hero complex. “Relax everypony! Everything is cool as of this exact moment! Your president, owner of the most hip place in the universe as voted for by readers of Playbeing Magazine, is here to help you sort your problems out! There is now officially one froody cat on the case! FREEYOW!”

Pose eighty-nine; heroically confident yet subtly caring, was on full display, yet even he noticed it wasn’t having the desired effect. The other ponies were just staring at him.
“And what exactly do you expect to do?” Rarity sounded tired.
“We’ve tried everything at this point. We have lived it for bloody decades.” The local sounded yet more so.
Zaphod was thinking hard. “These parasprite zeebs really love this music right?”
“They always come to it. I would say that sounds like they like it.”
“How do they act when they do? Do they go all loopy or what?”
“Look, this is a lot of fun I’m sure, but I have things to do, and I don’t have time for some bloody nancy from some other planet coming here acting the hero. My advice, get out of here before they eat your bloody ship out from under you, and anything else you have on board.”
“Frosty cool bro. Me and the ladies here...” he indicated with a sweep of his hoof “ are on the case.”
Rarity had to interject “The ladies and I”
“Um, we really would like to help. I mean, if you don’t mind of course.” Fluttershy had her Best Smile on. Nothing in the known universe diffused tension quite so well as Fluttershy’s Best Smile, which utterly deserved its capital letters.
“Yeah, we got this!” Rainbow grinned confidently.
Their host’s face softened. “Trust me, we’ve tried everythin’. Get out of here. Like I say, I have stuff to do, and I’ve wasted quite enough time explainin’ everything to you.”
“Oh don’t worry, we can get out of your mane soon buddy, just one thing, can I get a copy of that song?” Zaphod’s grin set off the tooth speaker once again. *ting*
“Why do you want that?”
“I think I have a plan so hoopy I can’t even BEGIN to tell myself what a cool frood I am!”

*

“So I guess we’re goin’ to this Medius place now?” Applejack did her best to sound in control. As far as she was aware, she was now in a party consisting of one temporary psychotic, one irrepressible lunatic and one child. “How do we get there?” And, she reminded herself, one farm-pony without the faintest understanding of what in the hay was going on.
“weeeeeEEEEeeeelll...” Pinkie stashed The Hitchhiker’s Guide away... somewhere. “I guess we could hitch another lift there from some student going there for a research project or something?”
“And what are the chances of that happening in the next few days?” Applejack had a hoof on Twilight’s neck. Twilight for her part had apparently exhausted herself with sheer frustration and
had passed out on the floor, and was now dreaming fitfully at their hooves, covered in that most useful of things, a towel.
Pinkie began muttering to herself. “Number of students... likely research topics... carry the one...”
“Don’t you start using fancy mathematics to muddy the issue! Just tell me straight, is it likely at all?”
“Oh, not really. There are a lot of places to study.”
“Fine. So, what does that leave us with?”
“I’m afraid it means either paying for a taxi, or finding some way of persuading one of the students to take a trip there.”
“And, uh, what exactly did you have in mind? What have we got to offer anypony?”
Pinkie lidded her eyes a tad. “Oh, you know.” Her voice was lower, huskier.
“Uh... can’t say I do there sugarcube.”
Pinkie wiggled her rump a little and a slow sultry smile spread across her cheeks. “Students can get awfully lonely...”
Applejack’s left eyebrow ratcheted up. “Are you...”
“I think we could definitely show them a gooooood time!”
Applejack’s left eyebrow was even more firmly ratcheted down into a hard frown.
“No way Pinkie.”
“I’m just saying...”
“NO!”
“But...”
“NO!”
“It’s just...”
“NO!”
“I’m not...”
“NO!”
“But Applejack...”
“We are NOT gonna do anything like that!”
“But I used to do it all the time in Ponyville!”
“You WHAT now?”
“You joined me half the time!”
“I what now?”
“You came to a lot of my parties!”
Applejack was suddenly lost. “Huh?”
“I just thought if we went to a party with some lonely students, and made it a really good Pinkie Pie Party™ we could make some really good friends and then ask them to maybe do us a favour, and have a new exciting adventure with us!”

Silence reigned.

“What did you think I meant?” Pinkie’s face was utterly innocent. Not the faintest twitch of comprehension crossed her sunny face.
Applejack stared into her eyes suspiciously, looking for a shred of mirth, the tiniest hint that Pinkie was messing with her in some way. She was both relieved and more than a little annoyed that she didn’t. “Never mind. Let’s just go find some damn party filled with generous new friends.” She had a definite feeling someone was playing a joke on her, and if it wasn’t Pinkie, it must have been the Universe as a whole. She really was beginning to dislike the Universe.

In her assessment that the universe was playing jokes on her; Applejack was in fact, right. Not in this particular instance, because the universe hardly has that much subtlety, but in as much as all the players in our story are in fact the butt, or at least plot, of a huge joke. Such is the lot of any being attempting to make sense of an infinite universe, with a finite amount of sense to go around it.

*

“Do you see any out there?” Fluttershy was staring outwards at the desert which now looked far more threatening. Nopony had specifically said that these parasprites had gone carnivorous, but it was a hard idea to shake.
Dash was hovering a few feet above her, eyes keen for any movement. “Nothin’.” She dropped to the ground. “I hope this idea of yours actually works.”
“Of course it will baby!” Zaphod had fished two pairs of spectacles from one of the pockets that lined today’s ensemble, and he had slicked back his mane to give off what he clearly imagined was an air of intelligence and trustworthiness. “I thought of it!”
“If it doesn’t, we will have some explaining to do to these poor ponies. I feel quite simply frazzled after being with that song for only this long. It just gets on ones nerves.”

It was, for the most part, a fairly dull walk back to the ship, the telling of which is not particularly worth the time. The only moment of action of any note came just before they entered sight of the Heart of Gold, when a small blue blob came buzzing in from the side and in ten seconds flat neatly consumed all of Zaphod’s parasols.
“HOLY BELGIUM!”
Above them, the parasprite belched out a new friend, fully grown, and bright red. It followed this up with a third sprite, this one white. The three descended rapidly towards our paralysed imperilled ponies.

Normally, this would make an excellent point for a commercial break; it being a moment of minor tension which can be easily reproduced on the other side of a series of advertisements. In this day and age where much media has the advertisement cut out, this can result in the audience seeing the same event repeated, apparently for no reason.

Above them, the parasprite belched out a new friend, fully grown, and bright red. It followed this up with a third sprite, this one white. The three descended rapidly towards our paralysed imperilled ponies.

All four of them galloped towards the ship, which had luckily escaped the attention of any sprites in the area. Zaphod dived through the door, which barely had time to wish him a nice day before he was up and shouting.
“EDDIE!” Get us up a bit higher for zark’s sake!”
“You got it buddy!”
“Dash, get that disk into one of the consoles now!”
“Which one?”
“Any one! Eddie?”
“Still here!”
“Whatever she puts that disk into had better be able to read it, or I am holding this ship personally responsible!”
To Eddie’s relief, the first computer banks accepted the disk without problem.
“Ok buddy, reading a short musical track, what do you want me to do with it?”
“Put it out as loud as you can! Make sure everything within half a continent can hear it!”
“I am legally required to remind you that you got in trouble last time you set the volume that loud on an inhabited planet.”
“Shut up Eddie, those buildings were gonna fall down anyway. And this hasn’t got the same froody bass levels as my usual selection. If you don’t play it right now, I swear I’ll...”
His threat went unheard because at that moment a solid wall of Polka seemed to blast through the ship. All conversation was lost, the ship vibrated and for hundreds of miles Parasprites everywhere ceased their aimless flying and looked around.
“SHIELD US FROM THE ZARKING RACKET EDDIE.” Zaphod’s yell was totally unheard, and yet the sound levels inside dropped instantly to a dead silence.
“Thank Belgium I let Eddie get that “HAL” lip-reading update.” Zaphod looked around for the first time. Rarity and Dash were standing together in a daze, eyes crossed, heads still vibrating slightly. Fluttershy had taken cover beneath a sofa with her head between her legs. Many years ago he had lost his natural hearing in a single power-chord played by Disaster Area’s front man Zabbs Martocki (the same fate befalls all who attend their concerts, meaning nothing beyond the first song is usually heard). His current hearing was supplied by artificial cybernetics, which quite simply did not let him suffer the pain of a loud noise. The others had been less fortunate.
“Hey, baby, are you alright?” He was low to the ground, talking to the shivering lump of pink and yellow pegasus under his sofa. He got nothing but a tiny squeak in response.
“It’s ok baby, the noise is all gone. Your hero made it all go away!”
This resulted in another pitiful squeak, but this time, a single teary eye raised itself above a hoof.
It was earlier stated that nothing could diffuse tension better than a Fluttershy smile. This may be true, but there is yet to be observed a force in the known universe more powerful than a single tear delivered from Fluttershy shivering from recent hurt and terror, delivered at point blank range.
Zaphod’s heart, the existence of which is up for public debate on several ether-net blogs, almost broke. “Hey, baby, I’m sorry! Are you ok?”
What little head he could make out shook slightly.
“Are you injured at all?”
The head shook again.
“Just hurting a lot?”
Both eyes rose into view. They were brimming with tears.
Zaphod stood up. “Eddie?”
“Yes el capitano?”
“I want the medi-bay set up with ear-repair-o-things and some of those really sweet little painkillers you hid from me by the time I get this filly there.” He glanced at the other two significantly more upright ponies. “Make it enough for three while you’re at it! Then plot a course to cover the entire planet surface with this song. Don’t travel any faster than those little flying zeebs can go though. Then stop as far away from any settlement as you can get. I’ll take it from there.”

Now, he thought. Priority, one, get this yellow one, Fluttershy to the medi-bay. Priority two, find that zarking robot, and get him ready to have a chat.

Priority three, drink until he could forget what those zarking eyes had looked like in that moment. And then a little more.

Comments

[Maelstrom]

there is no force greater than the crying Fluttershy

[Fonypan]

Do i sense an Incredibles reference?

[JetstreamGW]

Is... is Zaphod about to do something competent?

This cannot be. I'm waiting for the other shoe.

[BeauZoe]

which had luckily escaped the attention of any sprites in the area.

There is no luck, simply improbability. Am I right?

[CodeBroviet743]

Zaphods a sweetheart...